Transhumanism The First Woe

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The idea that human progress points toward human extinction is held by people/ organizations under several different titles: Transhumanists, posthumanists; extropians; advocates of H+, singularitarians. The editors of the blog will use “transhumanists” for the entire spectrum.

Transhumanism, social and philosophical movement devoted to promoting the research and development of robust human-enhancement technologies. Such technologies would augment or increase human sensory reception, emotive ability, or cognitive capacity as well as radically improve human

health and extend human life spans. Such modifications resulting from the addition of biological or physical technologies would be more or less permanent and integrated into the human body.

Origins

The term transhumanism was coined by English biologist and philosopher Julian Huxley in his 1957 essay of the same name. Huxley referred principally to improving the human condition through social and cultural change, but the essay and the name have been adopted as seminal by the transhumanist movement, which emphasizes material technology. Huxley held that, although humanity had naturally evolved, it was now possible for social institutions to supplant evolution in refining and improving the species. The ethos of Huxley’s essay—if not its letter—can be located in transhumanism’s commitment to assuming the work of evolution, but through technology rather than society.

Citation Information
Article Title: Transhumanism
Website Name: Encyclopedia Britannica
Publisher: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.
Date Published: 12 June 2018
URL: https://www.britannica.com/topic/transhumanism

“It can be difficult to know what transhumanism amounts to a worldview, an ideology, a movement, or some combination-but it cannot simply be dismissed as irrelevant. Doctoral dissertations and academic conferences have focused on transhumanism, and a few major universities have scholarly centers wholly devoted to exploring transhumanist ideas. Books and blogs, think tanks and online communities, documentaries and blockbuster movies have all helped to popularize those ideas. Major news outlets routinely publish reports uncritically explaining them.” Meanwhile, some of Silicon Valley’s best and brightest are committed transhumanists. Perhaps the most prominent promoter of transhumanism, the inventor and bestselling author Ray Kurzweil, subject of countless media profiles, was hired by Google in 2012 to serve as the company’s director of engineering.” The Eclipse of Man, Charles T Rubin, Human Extinction and the Meaning of Progress

“ …. In short, many of the people who are inventing the tools of tomorrow embrace, or are at least informed by, the transhumanist vision of the day after tomorrow The transhumanist program to redesign humanity is often linked with the rise of the so-called “converging technologies”: nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology (and sometimes robotics), and cognitive science. They are called converging technologies because each reinforces the potential that the others have for vastly increasing our ability to manipulate nature, including our own nature. “

Editor’s Note: Converging also in the sense of having common conceptual model rooted in AI – Machine Learning – Deep Learning.

Contributor’s Note: Elon Musk, CEO of Neurolink, says that Neurolink will have chip integration(internal) with the human brain on deployment this year (2021).

Tomorrow has never looked better. Breakthroughs in fields like genetic engineering and nanotechnology promise to give us unprecedented power to redesign our bodies and our world. Futurists and activists tell us that we are drawing ever closer to a day when we will be as smart as computers, will be able to link our minds telepathically, and will live for centuries—or maybe forever. The perfection of a “posthuman” future awaits us.

Or so the story goes. In reality, the rush toward a posthuman destiny amounts to an ideology of human extinction, an ideology that sees little of value in humanity except the raw material for producing whatever might come next.

In Eclipse of Man, Charles T. Rubin traces the intellectual origins of the movement to perfect and replace the human race. He shows how today’s advocates of radical enhancement are—like their forebears—deeply dissatisfied with given human nature and fixated on grand visions of a future shaped by technological progress.

What Is the Outlook

“And in those days shall man seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. “ ………………………………..Rev 9:6

“While it is still possible to make a splash by writing a book about how, in the not-so-distant future, people will regularly have sex with robots….”Blog Post: Robotic Sex

“…. that is hardly a revolutionary thought when for some time others have been writing books about people turning themselves into robots.” The “virtual reality” expected soon to make movies and games more immersive is just a precursor to direct connections between our brains and computers, and even that is merely a prelude to uploading our minds into computers-providing us with a kind of immortality (so long as proper backups are made).The undoubted promise biotechnology holds for lengthening human lives is overshadowed by speculation concerning the ability of nanotechnology to bring the dead back to life.” We are told that genetic engineering to cure disease and bioengineering to overcome disabilities are just foreshadowings of a complete re-engineering of human beings to add whatever senses, features, and capacities an individual might wish to possess.

Nanotechnologies are already being developed to deal with environmental and energy issues.” The fight against terrorism has spurred advances in robotics.” [We will] …continue to accumulate scientific information and innovative technology and use them to increase our powers over nature, which includes power over ourselves. “

Below is a survey of articles and books pertaining to the not too distant event threshold of Transhumanism.

In Contradistinction the Other View

Transhumanism VS Theosis

The crucial topic of the very human nature and its tremendous potential to transform or even overcome itself

08/13/2021Read More

Transhumanism The First Woe

What Is the Outlook

Where Are We Going

Transhuman Reference

Transhuman Despair

Robotic Sex

What Are We Doing

BCI Brain Computer Interface

Human Sheep

Speech To Thought

In Contradistinction the Other View

Transhumanism VS Theosis

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